Ursula, Under

once In A While, A First-time Novelist Dares To Write Bravely And Big. Ingrid Hill Has Done Just That With Her Breathtaking First Novel.

in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, A Dangerous Rescue Effort Draws The Ears And Eyes Of The Entire Country. When A Two-year-old Girl Falls Down A Mine Shaft It Is As If All Hope For Life On The Planet Is Bound Up In Her Rescue. Little Ursula Wong Is The First And Only Child Of A Young Woman Of Finnish Extraction And Her Chinese-american Husband. The Wongs Live In A Decrepit Mobile Home And Their Child Is Designated By One Onlooker As Half-breed Trailer Trash, Not Worth All The Attention And Expense.

oh Yeah? Responds The Story's Narrative Voice. let's Just See. And Here The Novel Explodes Into A Grand Saga Of Culture, History, And Heredity. By Its End, We've Met, Among Others Of Ursula Wong's Ancestors, A 2nd-century B.c. Chinese Alchemist; An Orphaned Consort To A 16th-century Swedish Queen; Professor Alabaster Wong, A Chautauqua Troupe Lecturer On Exotic Chinese Topics Traveling The Midwest At The End Of The 19th Century; And Ursula's Great-great-grandfather Jake Maki, A Mine Worker Who Died In A Cave-in At Age Twenty-nine.

ursula's Ultimate Fate Echoes That Of Her Ancestors, So Many Of Whom So Narrowly Escaped Not Being Born That Any Given Individual's Life Comes To Seem A Miracle. Ambitious And Accomplished, ursula, Under Is, Most Of All, Wonderfully Entertaining.

the Washington Post - Michael Anft

ursula, Under -- Hill's Great Big Novel -- Ditches Organizational Showiness In Favor Of A Directness That Puts All The Weight Of Judgment On Stories Of Ancients And Moderns, Waifs And Royals, The Ascetic And The Damned. Primarily The Tale Of Ursula Wong, A 2 -year-old Who Has Fallen Down An Abandoned Mine Shaft, The Novel Shows Hill Is Up To The Formidable Task Of Delivering On Her Unpretentious Modus Operandi.